Tinubu to UN: 1945 power structure cannot govern the World in 2026

ABUJA —PRESIDENT Bola Tinubu yesterday renewed calls for a radical shake-up of the United Nations, insisting that reforms must start with reconstituting the Security Council to grant Africa permanent seats.

He warned that the continent can no longer afford to fill the Council’s agenda from the margins, pointing out that the world of 2026 cannot remain captive to the distribution of power in 1945.

Tinubu made the call in his address delivered by his deputy, Vice President Kashim Shettima, during the general debate at the ongoing 81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, United States. Specifically, he demanded at least two permanent seats for the continent—including full rights, responsibilities, and veto power—along with a total of five non-permanent seats.

“The reform of this institution must begin with the reconstitution of the Security Council, for the world of 2026 cannot remain captive to the distribution of power in 1945. Africa cannot continue to fill the Council’s agenda while remaining absent from its permanent membership.

“Nigeria demands, in accordance with the Ezulwini Consensus and the Sirte Declaration, at least two permanent seats for Africa, with all the rights and responsibilities of permanent membership, including the veto for as long as it exists, and five non-permanent seats in total. The authority to speak for humanity carries an obliga-tion to represent it,” he stated.

President Tinubu also is-sued a wake-up call to world leaders, demanding an im-mediate end to global war-fare and a total rejection of the rising tide of nationalism. With urgent moral clarity, he warned that the global order hangs in the balance, while fiercely rallying the interna-tional community to dismantle unilateral aggression, resurrect the foundational principles of the United Nations Charter, and forge an unyielding, unified front through a recommitted era of global multilateralism.

The Nigerian leader categorically told the global leaders not to pretend that distant or domestic conflicts do not exact a price from other nations, underscor-ing the UN’s urgent duty to re-store trust in institutions built to reconcile differences and ad-vance global common interests.

“The persistence of conflict across the world recalls the purpose for which the Unit-ed Nations was founded: to spare succeeding genera-tions the devastation of war. We must therefore return to the founding principles of dialogue, mutual respect and collective responsibility. “Nigeria stands by the Char-ter and its promise of a world in which diplomacy prevails over coercion, cooperation over isolation and internation-al law over the arbitrary ex-ercise of power,” he declared.

The President framed Nigeria’s peacekeeping efforts in Afri-ca as a model, noting that the nation stands ready to take on greater responsibility and sac-rifice to restore peace across the continent—just as it did in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Dar-fur, Mali, and The Gambia, where it committed person-nel and resources when global solidarity demanded action. “Through ECOWAS, the Af-rican Union and our Gulf of Guinea partnerships, we con-tinue to advance mediation, democratic governance, count-er-terrorism and maritime se-curity,” he said, adding that Nigeria’s foreign policy depends on the same conviction that guides its economic reforms. President Tinubu stated that Nigeria is actioning its sus-tainable development com-mitments through disciplined macroeconomic manage-ment, robust institutions, private-sector growth, and strategic public investment.

Emphasising that the mission directly links Nigeria’s na-tional advancement to Africa’s progress and a global duty to foster peace, equity, and prosperity, he observed that internal achievements mean nothing if the nation ignores gathering external threats, de-claring that geography offers no exemption from the conse-quences of a fractured world. Government trust, according to him, is earned only when decisions improve lives, stress-ing, however, that since no nation is insulated from global conflicts, leaders must face security and climate realities head-on rather than pretending borders offer safety.